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IFL debut TV show on Fox Sport Net
By Zach Arnold | May 21, 2006
By Zach Arnold
Sunday, May 21st was the date of the IFL’s TV debut on Fox Sports Net. If the purpose of the show was to look like a serious, legitimate contender to UFC — then they accomplished the task at hand.
Site Poll: Rate the IFL’s TV debut on FSN
MMA Snark review of the show. Stephan at MMA Toronto has his first reactions to the TV show.
The introduction package showed labels such as kickboxing, karate, and wrestling as they mixed in the IFL team logos, and then showed boxing, muay thai, and jiu-jitsu. The crowd at the Trump Taj Mahal was shown. There were definitely some empty seats, but no worse than any normal boxing event on free TV. And the crowd, for the most part, was definitely supportive of the fighters. A good showing.
The team concept was, of course, the heavy focus of the show. Bas Rutten’s Anacondas vs. Pat Miletich’s Silver Backs. For as much of an emphasis as they placed on the team concept and the logos, ultimately everyone paid attention to the individual fighters. It’s going to take a real “hard sell” for the team concept to get over. At least it’s something different.
Boxing ring announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr. did the intros. Kenny Rice was the lead host, with Stephen Quadros doing the color commentary. Shannon Knapp (aka Bas’s Lil ‘sis) did some interviews, but there was no mention of Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. The commentating by Rice was serviceable, and Quadros excelled as a color commentator. Rice had some knowledge of MMA, but Quadros literally stole the show by providing knowledge on all of the fighters, the rules, and just an overall good TV presence.
The IFL kickboxing ring is a 5-roped, 21-foot ring. It’s a good-sized ring with a blue canvas, and it’s surrounded by a black ramp for the coaches to stand up on. If you are accustomed to the boxing-type of coverage that Fox Sports Net has done for events, then you’ll understand the set-up for the IFL show. The layout was very similar to a boxing event.
1. John-David Shackelford (Anacondas) vs. Bart Palaszewski (Silverbacks) – 155 pounds
They aired video packages before each of the fights, with the fighters giving interviews about their backgrounds. Herb Dean, the magnificent one, was the referee. It’ll be interesting to see if the UFC decides to have referees sign contracts or allow them to continue to freelance for rival promotions. The fighters used 5-ounce Fairtex gloves. Palaszewski easily won R1 with a crowd-pleasing offensive-oriented style. Shackelford did not show much.
On the Fox Sports Net Bay Area feed, a Strikeforce commercial aired for the upcoming June 9th event at the San Jose Arena. The ad was promoting Vitor Belfort and Cung Lee, with the tagline showing Belfort vs. (Kevin) Randleman. No mention of Alistair Overeem. “Cage fighting is back!”
Shannon Knapp did a quick promo talking about the “warm-up ramp” for fighters and that this was somehow a fan-friendly concept.
R2 of the first fight continued, and Bart won easily. Star #1 made.
They aired an outro promo with Ben Rothwell doing a funny, profanity-laced interview.
They aired a ringside interview between Palaszewski and Quadros after the fight. The TV scoreboard showed Silverbacks 1, Anacondas 0. The entrance way for the fighters also had a score tally.
2. Krzysztof Soszynski (Anacondas) vs. Ben Rothwell – Heavyweights
They aired pre-match video interviews, with Soszynski talking about being a pro-wrestler and how Bad News Brown (Bad News Allen) showed him a few MMA-style techniques and that’s what influenced him to change professions. At no time during the IFL broadcast did they make fun of pro-wrestling.
During the fight, they did the FSN boxing-style video cut-in of Bas Rutten in his corner coaching. Soszynski outboxed Rothwell, but Rothwell caught his opponent with a shot and got a takedown. Rothwell won the fight at the very end of R1 with a flurry of punches.
Shannon Knapp did an interview with Pat Miletich, talking about the process of picking fighters and match-ups.
3. Travis Wiuff (Silverbacks) vs. Alex Schoenauer (Anacondas) – Lightheavyweights
While the various team fights all feature fighters in different weight classes, there really wasn’t an emphasis on the size difference of fighters — at least not compared to the way UFC markets their divisions. Wiuff took Alex down and dominated for a few minutes, but Alex managed to get back up — only to be taken down again. In R2, Wiuff took Schoenauer down again, and the referee re-positioned the fighters to the center of the ring. Alex caught Wiuff in a great heel hook and forced the tap out.
By this third match, it became very clear who the best and most experienced fighters were (Wiuff and Schoenauer) and who were more or less lower-level fighters.
In an creative segment, they showed Bas Rutten in a video package with Schoenauer and Amir Rahnavardi going over the inverted heel hook hold. Rutten clearly explained how to apply and counter-apply the hold. He’s an excellent teacher, and it sure came across well on TV.
4. Amir Rahnavardi (Anaconda) vs. Ryan McGivern (Silverbacks) – 185 pounds
Highlights of R1 were shown, and R2 wasn’t even shown. So, they jumped in progress to R3. Not a great fight, and it went the distance. Surprisingly, the crowd did not entirely turn on the fighters. If this happened in UFC, the crowd would be booing hard. McGivern won by unanimous decision, giving Miletich’s team the 3-1 series win. Because you already knew what team won, this became a showing flaw in the team concept. They went ahead and aired the last fight, but had to try to play up reasons as to why people should watch it.
They aired a quick video segment with Quadros and Jay Hieron doing sponsor promotion — Gladiator mouthguard, Doublesport uniform, and Fairtex gloves.
5. Rory Markham vs. Mike Pyle (170 pounds)
Markham caught Pyle early and won by stoppage in 44 seconds. Fast fight.
Silverbacks win 4-1.
Overall Thoughts
If the goal was to make fans interested enough in watching the next IFL show, they accomplished that goal. It was by no means a boring show, but that’s the advantage of post-production. I don’t think the IFL is ready to air a live event on TV, but the taped shows are a good start.
The crowd was an actual positive, maybe not in size or paid attendance but they were supportive in their reactions to the fighters.
The ring instead of the cage is a big, big plus for the IFL. At no time did any of the fighters appear to be in danger of falling out of the ring, as the ropes held up the fighters just fine. And there were plenty of moments where the ropes were being used by fighters who were used to fighting in the cage and not a ring.
The Trump Taj Mahal ended up being a good building as far as creating a serious TV presence. We’ll see how it plays out in the future.
The one concern for the IFL will ultimately be the quality of the fighters. The difference between the experienced pros and the first-timers was pretty big. While none of the fights on the TV show really stuck out as being great, there was nothing abhorrently bad. But again, that’s the magic of post-production versus going live like UFC does all the time.
The big question on my mind after watching the first IFL show is this — what is the financial model of the IFL going to be? Once you start airing your product for free on TV, then any pay-based show (PPV) you ask the fans to support better be of higher quality than what you are offering on TV. If the TV show is focused on the team-based concept, then what the IFL’s draw be if they make the move to PPV? Usually with PPVs, you can argue that certain fighters sell. The UFC has managed to sell a lot of PPVs based on their brand alone, but the IFL cannot do that at this point. How will the IFL be able to market individual fighters if they spend their entire time marketing the team concept? One of the curious things about the team concept they are pushing is that it’s not geographically-aligned. It’s just teams, not teams affiliated with local cities. We’ll see what the future brings for the IFL.
Topics: All Topics, IFL, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 6 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
It was a good overall show, I’ll definitly be watching next week and not just cause it’s free MMA. My review, snarky as always, is up on http://www.mma-snark.com as per usual.
Hello Zach.
I’m anxious to see your review about Machado x Blackburn in next week.
Where was the Jens Pulver fight?
How is the match score effected by a draw?
I thought the show had tremendous production values, good camera work and angles. Quadros is a great announcer. The ring and lighting looked great. Much classier feel than UFC. I’d say right up there with Pride. They are going to need to bring in much better fighters though.
[…] Flashback: IFL debut TV show on Fox Sports Net […]
great show and considering the length of the show it didnt feel too clipped, although in the next two shows a run of decisions could make it feel more brief highlights than anything approaching a full show. this is a great idea that hopefully will be back for a second series.